RHEL 5.8 zLinux on zVM 6.1 using ECKD disks

We have a recurring problem where files get corrupted. It always happens in
the same directory, and we always wind up running fsck in single user mode
to get the file system back together.

The file system is EXT-2. (We changed from EXT-3 on this FS due to numerous
journaling errors which caused the FS to go to RO mode)

In the case I'm currently working on, a ".so" file (binary) has a chunk of
plain text in the middle of it. The "chunk" is 4K bytes long, and is a
piece of a program listing. 4K is the block size of the underlying DASD.

I am now in the process of trying to find when this happened by restoring
backup copies and seeing if I can narrow the time frame down.

Obviously I don't expect a "do this to fix the problem", but what I'm
wondering is, has anybody else encountered this? What could cause a block
in the middle of the file to be overwritten this way? Are there any tools I
can run (preferably while the system is at runlevel 3 or 5) to check if two
(or more) files are using the same block in a file?

I envision a "bad block pointer" somewhere, but how does that happen?

I'm considering converting the file system to EXT-4... I don't think
there's a conversion per-se, I'd create a new EXT-4 FS then copy all the
files from the EXT2 FS to the EXT-4 one.

Any suggestions/help are greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Donald Russell

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